Sharing Recipes (stolen content) on Facebook

I’ve noticed a trend lately, and it’s one that I’m not quite fond of. Many of my blogger friends will likely agree, and already have experience with this, but most of my friends and readers aren’t bloggers, and therefore need to be informed as to what is going on. I saw a lot of my Facebook friends over the last few months sharing more and more recipes via Facebook. My entire stream gets filled up with images of super yummy recipes. If I wanted to go browse through recipes, I’d head over to Pinterest, but Facebook? I want t know what is going on with YOU, or your company. Of course it’s fine to share links to articles you find interesting. Even to things you want to do or try, but the problem is that there are so many of these “content curator” sites popping up, and they are stealing. They are stealing from my friends. And THAT is not ok. So let me show you what is happening…. A friend of mine shares what she thinks looks like a super yummy recipe. As she is NOT a blogger or content creator, she doesn’t think about the source of the material. She only knows that it looks tasty. This is why I’m bringing this to everyone’s attention. Because it needs to stop. So, my friend unwittingly shares this… But wait just a minute there! I’ve seen that image and recipe before, only it was from my friend Oh Sweet Basil. Surely this site has given a link to the original content… they wouldn’t just STEAL the image and recipe from someone and claim it as their OWN would they? After perusing the comments, sure enough, no credit was given to the original article, found HERE. Then I went through the last few posts on that page (the page that stole the content), and EVERY SINGLE IMAGE and RECIPE had been stolen from somewhere. It was super easy to find the original content creators of most of the recipes. I would just do a google search for the recipe title, or an image search for the recipe title. Sometimes I had to do a search for a quote from the recipe “instructions”, but every single one took me less than a minute to find. I notified several of the content creators of the stolen work from their sites. So, what can you do as you browse through Facebook to help bloggers get credit for their hard work. Although sometimes it may look like blogger’s have a pretty sweet set up going, a lot of work goes into each and every blog post. My sister, who is also a food blogger (www.SuperHealthyKids.com) works extremely hard to come up with creative new ideas, make them, and take gorgeous pictures of them. If you are going to reap the benefits of their hard work, please find the original content creator and share THAT post instead of re-sharing stolen recipes. Be sure to check out Authentic Blogger Recipes Facebook page. They are sharing great recipes, WITH credit and links to the original content. This is the same for Pinterest as well. Before I re-pin ANYTHING, I make sure to click on the image and make sure it is going to the right blog/website so that the right person is getting credit! More people need to stand up against these pages so that they will get the idea that stealing isn’t cool. I’ll get off my soapbox now. UPDATE: So I noticed on the Facebook page of a thousand stolen recipes, that someone who seemed related to the site owner posted that if you don’t like it just go away. So I commented that maybe people don’t like stolen content, and then it blew UP from there. The thread has been deleted, but here’s some choice words from our friendly neighborhood thieves….

It’s bad on Facebook, but also so completely rampant on Pinterest. I almost never repin, at least not until I’ve verified that there is an actual original link behind that image. I HATE images on Pinterest that lead to nowhere or to a tumblr account of nothing but photos. I don’t want just a photo…what’s the point of that? Like you said, I think that most people who are not original content creators just don’t think about where these images come from. Thanks.

just file a copyright infringement with Facebook. Don’t bother provoking these people. When FB has enough complaints and they’ve had to remove enough from a page, they will shut it down. They are quick to remove content when you file the report.
Also, when FB removes the content from their page, it will also disappear from the pages of all the people who shared it.

I love these posts that you do that are for the good of everyone! When I emailed a friend about sharing content that was swiped she was shocked. It’s important that people understand a bit more about these things!